Biennial report, Public Schools of North Carolina

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BIENNIAL REPORT
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SUPERINTENDENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION
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NORTH CAROLINA
FOR THE
SCHOLASTIC YEARS 1912-1913 AND 1913-1914
RALEIGH
EDWARDS & BROUGHTON PRINTING COMr»ANV
STATE PRINTERS AND B'NDCRS
DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION.
J. Y. JoYNER Superintendent of Public Instruction
C. E. MclNTOSH Chief Clerk
A. S. Brower Statistical Secretary, Clerk of Loan Fund
E. E. Sams Supervisor of Teacher Training
N. W. Walker State Inspector of High Schools
L. C. Brogden State Agent Rural Schools
N. C. Newbold State Agent Rural Schools
T. E. Browne Agent Agricultural Extension
Miss Annie Travis Stenographer
STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION.
Locke Craig Governor, President
J. Y. JoYNER Superintendent Public Instruction, Secretary
E. L. Daughtridge Lieutenant Governor
J. Bryan Grimes Secretary of State
B. R. Lacy State Treasurer
W. P. Wood State Auditor
T. W. BicKETT Attorney General
STATE BOARD OF EXAMINERS.
J. Y. Joyner Chairman ex officio
C. E. MclNTOSH Secretary, Raleigh
H. E. Austin Greenville
N. W. Walker Chapel Hill
Wm. a. Graham Warrenton
Z. V. JuDD Chapel Hill
LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL
State of North Carolina,
Department of Public Instruction,
Raleigh, December 10, 1914.
To His Excellency, Locke Craig
Governor of North Carolina.
Dear Sir:—According to section 4090 of The Revisal of 1905 I have the
honor to transmit my Biennial Report for the scholastic years 1912-13 and
1913-14 Very Truly yours,
J. Y. JoYNiai,
Superintendent of Public Instruction.
59G iO
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
PART I.
Summary in Brief Outline of Two Years' Progress in Education.
Recommendations.
Work to Be Done and How to Do It.
Statistical Summary of Two Years' Progress.
PART II.
Statistics for 1912-13.
Statistics for 1913-14.
PART III.
Report of State Inspector of Public Higti Schools, 1912-13.
Report of State Inspector of Public High Schools, 1913-14.
Report of Supervisor of Teacher-training.
Report of State Agent Rural Schools.
Report of State Agent Rural Schools.
Report of Colored Normal Schools, 1912-1913 and 1913-1914.
Report of Peabody Rural Supervision Fund.
Circular Letters of State Superintendent.
PART I.
SUMMARY AND BRIEF OUTLINE OF TWO YEARS' PROGRESS
IN EDUCATION.
RECOMMENDATIONS.
WORK TO BE DONE AND HOW TO DO IT.
STATISTICAL SUMMARY OF TWO YEARS' PROGRESS.
SUMMARY AND BRIEF OUTLINE OF TWO YEARS' PROGRESS
IN EDUCATION.
The following summary and brief outline of the progress in education for
the biennial period beginning July 1, 1912 and ending June 30, 1914, is based
on the official reports on file in the office of the Superintendent of Public In-struction,
and can be verified in detail by the published statistical reports oi
this biennial period.
Increase in School Funds.—The total available school fund for the year end-ing
June 30, 1914, was $6,119,602.72. This is an increase of $1,630,850.15 over
the total available school fund for 1912. Of this total available school fund
for 1914 $3,267,613.89 was raised by State and county taxation and appropria-tion,
and $1,367,948.65 was raised by local taxation in special tax districts, of
which $823,366.17 was raised in urban districts, and $544,582.48 in rural dis-tricts.
This is an increase in 1914 over 1912 of $34,803.21 in the amount
raised by local taxation in rural districts and $153,378.76 raised by local
taxation in urban districts.
Of the total available school fund for 1914 $4,012,488.86 was the rural school
fund and $2,107,113.86 the urban school fund. In percentage there has been
an increase of seven percent in the funds raised by local taxation in the rural
districts, and 23 per cent in the funds raised by local taxation in urban dis-tricts,
and 30 per cent in the annual available fund raised by general Stale
and county taxation and appropriation in 1914 over 1912.
Excluding bonds, loans, State appropriations and the balance from the pre-vious
year, the whole amount raised by county and local district taxation for
public schools during 1914 was $4,006,779.51 an increase of $610,047.17 over
1912. The increase in the rural funds raised by taxation In 1914 over 1912
was $353,683.00, the city increase was $256,364.17. These figures show that
during 1914 $7.87 was raised for each child of school age enumerated in our
State School Census; $6.39 for each child outside the cities and towns, and
$14.03 within the cities and towns. This was a per capita increase in 1914
over 1912 of $1.62 for each country child of school age, and $3.04 for each city
child of school age.
TJiese comparisons are made between the last year of this biennial period,
1914, and the last year of the preceeding bienial period, 1912, so as to indicate
the progress of the period. The figures for the year 1913 and the relative pro-gress
of 1914 over 1913 can easily be ascertained from the published statis-tical
reports found elsewhere in this report.
For What the Money Was Spent.—With this increase in available funds for
educational purposes, there has been during the period a corresponding ir-crease
in those things which can be provided only by increased funds. There
has been an increase of $1,013,456.02 in the value of rural school property,
and $684,651.25 in the value of urban school property, making a total in-crease
of $1,698,087.27 in the total value of the public school property of the
State. There has been expended during the period $1,611,048.41 in building,
improving and equipping public school houses. Eight hundred and ten new
rural schoolhouses have been built at an average cost of $840.45. There has
8 Two Years' Pkogkess
been an increase of 643 in the number of rural schoolhouses equipped with
patent desks, and $139,548.81 has been expended during the biennial period
for furniture for rural schoolhouses, and $54,232.41 for furniture for urban
schools.
Eleven and one-half days have been added to the average annual school
term of white schools of the State, and 17 days to the average annual school
term of the colored schools of the State, 17.8 days to the white rural school
term and 19.3 days to colored rural school term. In newly established
local tax districts of course, the school term has been greatly lengthened
and in many instances doubled. There has been an increase of 1,065 in
the number of white teachers employed, and 275 in the number of col-ored
teachers employed. There has been an increase in the average an-nual
salary of white teachers of $51.91 and 33.97 in the average annual
salary of colored teachers. The average annual salary of rural school teachers
has been increased $47.40. There has been a necessary increase in the expense
of collecting, expending and administering a larger fund, and an increase in
the current expenses for longer terms with more schoolrooms and teachers.
The total expenditures for all schools during 1914 was $5,566,992.89, which
represents an increase of $1,488,872.85 over 1912, an increase of $9] 8,518.54 in
rural expenditures, and $570,354.31 in city expenditures. Of this increase
rural teachers and superintendents received $694,597.71, and urban teachers
and superintendents received $206,013.49. The increased expenditures for
administration, including treasurers' commissions, the expenses of boards
of education, school committeemen, and taking census, was $56,838.45 for
rural schools and a decrease of $2,852.26 for city schools. The increase in
the expenditures for all other purposes, including overcharges arising from
overestimates of poll tax, errors in treasurer's commissions, etc., borrowed
money for building repaid, etc.; repaid out of collected taxes was $206,645.87.
The expenditures for public high schools showed a reasonable increase. In
this report the expenditures for high schools have been included with the
other rural school expenditures and will not be found listed separately as
heretofore. A detailed report of the high school expenditures will be found
elsewhere in the report of the State Inspctor of Public High Schools. An
increase in the amounts spent for buildings and supplies is shown in 1914
over 1912 of $496,449.10. Taking collectively the gain in the expenditures
under each head, there was a net increase in the expenditures for the State
for public schools of $1,488,872.85 for 1914 over 1912. This shows a gain in
the expenditures for schools of about 30 per cent.
Increase in Value of School Property.—In 1914 the total value of school
property of the State was $9,078,703.27. Of this amount the value of rural
school property was $5,030,710.02 and the value of city school property was
$4,047,993.25. This is an increase in 1914 over 1912 of $1,698,087.27 in the to-tal
value of all school property of which $1,013,456.02 is the increase in the
value of rural school property and $684,631.25 the increase in the value of city
school property. The value of white school property in 1914 was $8,056,966.34
of which $4,470,892.25 was rural and $3,586,074.09 was urban. The percent-age
of increase in the value of school property during the biennial period
was 23 per cent, 25 per cent rural and 20 per cent urban.
In 1914 there were 7928 school houses in the State—7,619 rural and 309
urban, 5,356 rural white and 199 urban white, 2,263 rural colored and 110
urban colored. The average value of each rural white schoolhouse was
Two Years' Progress 9
$851.55, the average value of each city white schoolhouse was $18,020.47, the
average value of each rural colored schoolhouse was $247.38, the average
value of each city colored schoolhouse was $4,199.27. There has been an in-crease
of $178.83 in the average value of each rural white schoolhouse and
$41.96 in the average value of each colored rural schoolhouse in 1914 over
1912. During the biennial period $784,619.87 was spent for white rural school
buildings and sites and $498,028.60 was spent for white urban school build-ings
and sites. $82,272.65 was spent for colored rural school buildings and
$53,346.27 was spent for urban colored school buildings. Taken collectively
this means that $910,124.41 was spent for rural school buildings and sites and
$551,374.87 was spent for urban school buildings and sites.
Neiv Schoolhouses Built.—During the biennial period 810 new rural school-houses
have been built—606 white and 204 colored, at a cost of $811,407.77.
This means an average of more than one rural schoolhouse for every day in the
year and including the city schoolhouses built the average runs considerably
over one per day. This pace of building at least one new schoolhouse for
every day in the year according to approved plans of modern school architec-ture
prepared by most competent architects under the supervision of the
State Department of Education and distributed from the office of the State
Superintendent of Public Instruction, has been maintained for the past
twelve years—a total of 4,475 new schoolhouses having been built during this
time—in 4,383 days. This also means that three-fifths of all the schoolhouses
in this State have been built anew or rebuilt within the last twelve years.
Improvement of School Furniture and Equipment.—During the biennial pe-riod
$313,487.39 has been spent for school furniture and necessary equipment,
an increase of $70,113.00 in the expenditures for this purpose over the pre-ceding
biennial period. In 1914 there were 3,446 rural schoolhouses equipped
with modern school furniture—3,049 white and 397 colored—an increase of
507 white and 136 colored over 1912, 3,082 rural schoolhouses were reported
furnished with home-made desks—1,860 white and 1,222 colored.
Increase in Local Tax Districts and Funds Raised by Local Taxation.—
During the biennial period 190 local tax districts have been established by
voluntary vote of the people in rural communities and small towns, an aver-age
of nearly two districts per week for each week in the two school years.
This made a total of 1,629 districts in the State at the end of the school year.
In 1914 $1,367,948.65, about 22 per cent of the entire school fund of this State,
was raised by a local taxation, $545,582.48 in rural districts and $823,366.17
in urban districts. All the counties of the State now have from one to 61 lo-cal
tax districts each, levying special taxes therein to supplement their appor-tionment
from the State and county funds for longer terms, better school-houses
and equipment, better teachers paid better salaries and for better
schools.
Increased Attendance and Lengthening of School Term.—As a result of the
operation of the Compulsory Attendance Law and the law setting aside five
cents of the total State tax levy on every hundred dollars of property for the
creation of the State Equalizing School Fund for the lengthening of the
school term in every school district exclusive of all local taxation to a mini-mum
of six months or as near thereto as said Equalizing Fund will provide,
requiring all counties to provide first out of their own school funds a mini-mum
school term in each district of at least four months and to levy a special
tax to a maximum of 15 cents on the hundred dollars for the purpose wher-
10 Two Yeaks' Progress
ever necessary in order to participate in this fund, there has been an unprece-dented
increase of 11.6 per cent in the average daily attendance and a length-ening
of the school term to a minimum of 103.3 days or five months and
nearly a week in every public school district in North Carolina and to an
average public school term of 122 days for the entire State. This is the
largest increase in enrollment and attendance and in length of public school
term during any one year in the history of North Carolina or perhaps in the
history of any other State in the South. It will be remembered that these
laws were passed by the General Assembly of 1913 in response to the univer-sal
demand of the people of the State upon their Representatives and that
1913-14 was the first year of their operation.
The increase in the school census in 1914 over 1912 was 15,676—9,018 white
and 5,958 colored. The increase in the school enrollment was 74,140—36,498
white and 37,646 colored. The increase in average daily attendance was
75,918—46,036 white and 29,882 colored. These figures indicate the most re-markable
increase in the enrollment and average daily attendance in the
history of the State.
In 1914 the average length of school term in white rural schools was 115.5
days, in the city, white schools 166.5 days, in all white schools of the State
124.22 days, in the rural colored schools 104 days, and in the city colored
schools 167 days. This is an increase in 1914 over 1912 in the average term
of the rural white schools of 17.8 days, and an increase in the rural colored
schools of 19.3 days. The increase in the term of all rural schools therefore
was 18.5 days. There was a slight decrease in the length of the term of the
city schools, due to smaller schools with shorter terms receiving charters.
These short term schools of course bring down the general average of the
city schools somewhat.
As stated above there has been an increase in the number of teachers em-ployed—
white and colored.
Improvement in Teachers' Institutes and Other Facilities for Teacher-training.—
Under amendments to the school law by the General Assembly of
1909 a two-weeks teachers' Institute was made mandatory in every county
biennially. Teachers' institutes were held in twenty-nine counties in 1913 and
in sixty-four counties in 1914. Special arrangements were made in Durham,
Chowan, Guilford, Orange, Pitt, Wake and Watauga for the training of the
teachers in summer schools or otherwise to take the place of institute work.
With the aid of the Supervisor of Teacher-training, also made possible bj'^ an
amendment to the law in 1909, the work of the county teachers' institutes and
the county teachers' associations has been organized and systematized, and
through teachers' reading circles, a valuable course for home study and
home training for the professional improvement of the rank and file of the
teachers is being successfully conducted. Teachers' associations, holding
monthly meetings, are in successful operation in more than ninety counties.
Most of these associations have also organized teachers' reading circles for
pursuing the prescribed course of professional reading.
A trained man and a trained woman have been appointed to conduct each
of these county teachers' institutes. All institute workers have been required
to attend a conference of three or four days with the State Superintendent
of Public Instruction and the Supervisor of Teacher-training, for the discus-sion
of their work and the arrangement of uniform and definite plans of work
before beginning the institutes, and have been furnished with bulletins con-
Two Years' Progress 11
taining definite outlines and approved suggestions for the work of the insti-tutes.
Under this plan there has been marked progress in the organization
and the direction of this institute work. It has been uniform, practical, and
progressive, with more teaching and demonstration and less lecturing, with
more emphasis on the essential subjects and less on the frills.
The reports received from these institutes have been the most encouraging
ever received by the State Superintendent. They have been more largely at-tended
and the teachers have been more interested and benefitted than ever
before. A fuller report of this institute and teacher-training work, by the
Supervisor of Teacher-training, is printed elsewhere in this report. An at-tempt
has been made, with encouraging success, to correlate and coordinate
the work of these agencies for home study and professional improvement of
teachers—the teachers' institute, the county teachers' association and reading
circles, to plan the work so as to make it more progressive and continuous
from year to year. North Carolina Education, our offlcial State teachers'
journal, is heartily cooperating and rendering valuable assistance in carrying
on this work.
Improvement in County Siipervision.—There has been an increase in the
number of county superintendents giving their entire time to the work of
supervision and an increase in the time devoted to their work by nearly all
the superintendents. Seventy-one county superintendents, an increase of
twenty during this biennial period, now devote their entire time to the work.
The county superintendents are thoroughly organized into State and district
associations, holding annual meetings for the discussion with each other and
with the State Superintendent of their common problems, for an exchange of
views and experiences, for mutual counsel and advice and for forming plans
for carrying on more uniformly and successfully the great work of educating
all the people in the schools for all the people. It has seemed to me that dur-ing
this biennial period the county superintendents have shown an unusual
improvement in the efficient and intelligent discharge of their duties and
that on the whole they have manifested a fine spirit of loyalty and devotion to
their work. Much progress has been made in the organization, training, and
directing of their teaching force and in systematization, classification and
gradation of the work in the rural schools.
Improvement in County Supervision.—As will appear elsewhere from the
reports of Mr. Brogden and Mr. Newbold, the State Agents for Rural Schools,
there has been during the year marked progress in a number of counties in
closer and more efficient supervision of rural schools. At least ten counties
employed during the year competent, trained women to assist in the supervi-sion
of their rural schools.
Progress in Rural Public High Schools.—During the biennial period 12
new public high schools have been established, making a total of 212 such
schools in 96 counties of the State. There are, therefore, only four counties
that do not have one or more of these schools. The annual State appropria-tion
for their maintenance was increased $25,000 in 1911, making the total
annual State appropriation for them $75,000. During the biennial period
$417,358.64 has been expended for the ipaintenance of these schools.
The total enrollment of country boys and girls in them was 7,946 in 1913
and 8,316 in 1914, a total of 16,262 for the biennial period—7,869 boys and
8,393 girls. This is an increase of 2,357 in the total enrollment of 1914 over
that of 1912, an increase of 18 per cent in enrollment. There has been an
12 Two Years' Pkogkess
average daily attendance of 5,921 in 1913 and 6,307 in 1914. The percentage
of enrollment in average daily attendance for the past two years has been
75 per cent.
In connection with some of these high schools, dormitories have been built
and equipped, in which high school students may secure board at the actual
cost and pay for it in money or in provisions at the market price.
These figures show an encouraging increase in enrollment and attendance
upon these public high schools, indicating a commendable growth in public
sentiment among the rural population for high school education, for the ele-vation
of the average of intelligence, and for better preparation for citizen-ship
and service. A fuller report of these public high schools, prepared by
the State Inspector of Public High Schools, is printed in another section of
this report.
Increase in Rural Libraries.—During the biennial period 501 new libraries
have been established costing approximately $15,030.00, containing an
average of about eighty-six volumes each of well selected books which are
lent to the pupils of rural communities for their use; 347 new suppemen-tal
libraries have been added to the libraries formerly established, costing $5,-
200.00, and adding about thirty-five books to each of these original libraries.
The total number of rural libraries in the State at the close of the biennial pe-ried
was 3,609, the total number of supplemental libraries 1,525. Almost one-half
of all the school districts in the State, white and colored, are now pro-vided
with rural libraries.
Loan Fund for Building Schoolhouses.—During the biennial period the
total amount of new loans made from the State loan fund for building and
improving public schoolhouses was $207,447.00, an increase of $42,152.00 ov3r
the preceding biennial period, to seventy-nine counties for building and im-proving
houses valued at $674,842.00. The total amount of loans made from
this loan fund since its establishment in 1903 aggregates $896,022.50 to ninety-eight
counties for building and improving 1,531 houses valued at $2,411,500.00.
This means that about one-fifth of all the schoolhouses in the State have been
built or enlarged by the aid of this fund.
This fund continues to be of incalculable service in building and improving
public schoolhouses; the loans from it often make possible at once much
needed new houses where they would not otherwise be possible without
closing the schools and using the entire apportionment for one or more years
for building. A timely loan from this fund also often means to a district the
difference between a poor cheap house and a good properly constructed one.
By the method of extending the payments over a period of ten years and
charging such a small rate of interest a district can' take care of the repay-ment
of a loan from this fund without seriously hampering the efficiency of
the school, or materially shortening the school term. Loans from this fund
are made only for houses constructed in accordance with plans approved by
the State Superintendent of Public Instruction, and the plans for any house
not constructed in accordance with one of the plans issued by the State
Department must be submitted to the State Superintendent for his approval
before the application will be filed or the loan made. A fuller and more de-tailed
report of the loan fund will be found elsewhere in this report.
Boys' Corn Club, Girls' Tomato Clubs, An Increased Interest in Agricultural
Instruction.—With the aid of Prof. T. E. Browne, agent for Agricultural Ex-tension
Work, Mrs. Jane McKimmon, agent in charge Girls' Demonstration
Two Years' Progress 13
Work, and with the active cooperation of the county superintendents and
teachers, boys' corn clubs and girls' tomato clubs have been organized in many
counties of the State. The reports of Prof. Browne and Mrs. McKimmon
below give a full account of this division of the work.
Hon. J. Y. Joyner, Superintendent of Public Instruction of North Carolina.
Dear Sir:—I beg lief to submit a report of the work conducted from the
office of Extension, A. and M. College, for the biennial period ending December
1st, 1914. It is not practical for us to use the same time limits in the biennial
period as tliose in used in the State Department of Education, because of the
fact that reports from the boys cannot be secured until after harvest. This
report is to deal primarily with the Boys' Corn Club work and work with the
rural schools, especially the schools in which agriculture is being taught.
Since the last bienial report the Canning Club work has been placed under
the direct management of Mrs. Jane S. McKimmon.
Under a recent arrangement with the Washington office the Corn Club work
has been put under the same general direction as the Farm Demonstration
work with Mr. C. R. Hudson as State agent, Mr. T. E. Browne, assistant in
charge of Club work and Mr. A. K. Robertson, assistant in Boys' Corn Clubs.
It is with pleasure that I am able to report some progress in the Club
work. In 1913 the number of boys enrolled was 2,276 in 86 counties. Of this
number 670 made reports. These 670 boys made an average yield of 62.4 bush-els
per acre, in spite of the fact that on September 3rd the State was visited
by one of the most destructive storms in its history. Not taking into consid-eration
the large number of boys who grew corn and did not report, the 670
boys reporting added to the corn yield of the State 41,816.9 bushels. This
corn cost the boys $15,464.37. Figuring the corn at $1.00 per bushel, we find
the boys added to the material wealth of the State the net amount of $26,-
352.53, and the cost of conducting the work did not exceed $6,000.00. We are
of the opinion that from a purely monetary standpoint it was a good invest-ment
for the State.
We feel that the work has a far greater value in increasing the interest of
the boys in scientific agriculture, in giving the boys in our rural districts a
greater faith in themselves and the soil, and in inspiring them with a desire
to do greater things in life.
The Club work has a further value in teaching the boys to be "business
farmers" by requiring them to keep an accurate account of all expenses in-curred
in growing the corn. We count 30 per cent for the best business show-ing
for the year's work. We also believe that by requiring the boys to
write a short history of how they grew their corn, and allowing this to count
20 per cent on their final record it can be made a very vital part of
the composition work in the schools.
It has been the policy of the writer to keep the boys informed on the main
points in the production of corn by sending to them each month a letter ex-plaining
the work to be done at that particular time. These monthly letters
have served to keep up the interest of the boys as well as to give them very
important information at the time it was most needed.
TThe enrollment for 1914 has been very encouraging. We made a special ap-peal
through the teachers and the Farm Demonstration agents, who are now
required to give this work their personal supervision, and as a result we have
doubled the enrollment for 1914, there being now 4,540 boys on our roll.
These boys are distributed over ninety-seven counties, Wake having the larg-est
enrollment with Wilkes a close second.
Of the 4,540 boys enrolled in 1914 Corn Club, 964 have sent their final
report. These 964 boys made an average yield of 58.1 bushels per acre, at
a cost of 461/2 cents per bushel. The boys made a total yield of 56,073.35 bush-els
of corn at a total cost of $26,106.50. Valuing this corn at $1 per bushel and
deducting the expense from the total value, the boys have added to the wealth
of the State this year $29,966.85. A much larger number of boys would have
reported but for the long summer drought.
During the summer of 1913 Prof. I. O. Schaub resigned his position as Pro-fessor
of Extension in Charge of Club Work and T. E. Browne was elected to
14 Two Years' Progress
the vacancy. The present incumbent took charge of the office September 1,
1913.
We are endeavoring more and more to connect the Club work with the
school work of the State, to make it a laboratory where the principles of agri-culture
taught in the school room may be vitalized by putting them to practical
use on these contest acres. The hearty cooperation of the County Superin-tendents
of Public Instruction and public school teachers is highly appreciated,
because the writer realizes more and more that the success of this movement
is in direct proportion to the interest and cooperation manifested by the rural
school teachers.
The following quotation is taken from the Boys' Corn Club Hand-Book pre-pared
by the undersigned and published as circular No. 17 by the State Ex-periment
Station:
HOW TEACHERS CAN HELP.
"Without the cooperation and aid of the rural school teachers, the strong
efficient organization of the Boys' Corn Clubs could never have been effected.
They have been very kind in presenting this work in their schools and
sending the names of boys to the office for enrollment. Without the teacher
the management cannot get in touch with these farmer boys, most of whom
are in school some time during the winter months. A number of live, pro-gressive
teachers are doing yeoman service in their respective districts with
results, of which any one should be justly proud.
"The teachers and school authorities of the State are earnestly requested,
by the State Superintendent of Public Instruction, to co-operate in this great
'
work and help the management enroll the farmer boys. The rural school,
with the school garden or school farm, should be made the community center
around which all the club work revolves."
The Extension Division of the College and Experiment Station is desirous
of making itself more useful to the schools of the State, especially the Farm
Life schools. The Division stands ready to help any of the schools to estab-lish
a course in Agriculture, or render any assistance it can to those already
teaching agriculture.
The Corn Club work is still being carried on through the cooperation of
the National Department of Agriculture, the State Department of Agriculture
and Experiment Station, and the A. & M. College, and State Department of
Education. The outlook for 1915 is very encouraging, and already the en-rollment
is growing rapidly.
Respectfully submitted, T. E. Browne,
Superintendent of Agricultural Extension,
in Charge of Boys' Corn Club Work.
Report of Canning Clubs of North Carolina, December, 1913, to December,
1914. Jane S. McKimmon, State Agent.
There were organized in North Carolina for Canning Club work from Decem-ber,
1913, to December, 1914, 32 counties, with an enrollment of 1500 mem-bers,
an increase of 18 counties and 1100 members over the previous year.
These members are divided into 144 clubs with 78 supervisors. Each county
has its chief agent, and where there are many clubs in a county this agent
has sub-agents to assist in supervising members and getting standards during
the canning season. In two widely organized counties we have as many as
eight agents each; in others, five or less.
Thirty of the counties have sent in to me their reports for the year which
state that 209,686 No. 3 tin cans, and 49,405 glass jars of tomatoes, string
beans, peaches, berries and all other edible products of the farm have been
produced.
Total value $35,361.50
Cost 9,425.76
Profit 25,935.74
Average cost per member 11.44
Average profit per member 31.82
Two Years' Progress 15
One club of fifteen members, supervised by Mrs. Ross of Alamance County,
put up 10,682 No. 3 tin cans, 1,640 glass jars, and 100 gallons of vinegar, and
sold fresh $55 worth of vegetables. These things represent $1,563 in cash
values, cost $360, profits $1,196, or $86.40 profit per girl. One hundred per
cent of the members enrolled in this club reported the work done.
Mrs. Lamb of Sampson county, a county just started in the work last spring,
reports a club of nine members filling 5,975 No. 3 tin cans, and 102 glass jars
with vegetables, fruits and juices, selling fresh $2 worth of vegetables.
Total money value $625.00
Cost 162.00
Profit 463.00
Profit per member 51.45
Eighty-two per cent of the members enrolled reported. We have many
other clubs making almost as good records.
Alamance County, which has been in the work three years, reports the
greatest number of cans and jars filled.
Number filled 55,165
Sold fresh 226.25
Money value $7,039.65
Cost 1,77.1.25
Profits 5,268.45
Seventy-five per cent of the members enrolled in this county reported.
Miss Edna Reinhardt, who has seven sub-agents as assistants, is the chief
agent in this county.
Anson County, with Mrs. Redfearn as chief agent, as-sisted
by three supervisors, produced in tin and glass
jars 38,540
Sold fresh $ 162.16
Money value 5,016.20
Cost 1,531.80
Profits $3,884.40
This county has an enrollment of 63 girls, and of these 60, or 96 per cent re-ported.
They have done remarkable work in glass, sending several hundred
dollars worth of shipments north. Austin Nichols, one of the largest whole-sale
fancy grocers in the United States, has ordered a car load of preserves
from picked girls under Mrs. Redfearn's supervision after seeing a display of
their beautiful packs.
Mrs. Capehart of Granville, and Mrs. Bayne of Cumberland County, have
also had their selected girls do beautiful glass packs for the northern markets.
We have bent every effort this year toward teaching commercial packing
and out of the 25 counties exhibiting at the State Fair, only one failed to show
its training in that particular. We were very proud of the uniformly good
packs that these counties sent in, and felt much complimented that the Wash-ington
Office should have selected one dozen glass jars to be photographed for
a bulletin as examples of fine standard commercial packs. At the State Fair
there were displayed 1,104 glass jars of fruits and vegetables, and two large
pyramids of tins.
While in New York I examined the packs of goods sold by Park & Tilford
and found our girls' packs to compare most favorably.
Our markets are good, and most of the counties are selling at home.
Each county supervisor has been growing gradually into a consultant house-keeper
for the county; promoting home economics in the country schools by
her small cooking clubs, giving instruction in butter making, marketing, farm
produce, grading and packing eggs, impressing the gospel of sanitation, and
promoting "get together clubs."
If we had the funds to employ these agents for the whole year, in my opin-ion
there could be found no more efficient means of organizing the country
women for better living.
We have added eleven new counties to our organization for 1915, and have
16 Two Years' Progress
twenty-seven counties whicli have applied, on our waiting list, which we will
admit into the organization as soon as we can finance the work.
To carry on the testing of recipes, which, by the way, is done with each
recipe before it is given to the girls; and for tests in canning, it is necessary
that we have a small laboratory simply equipped for the purpose. This will
cost very little and I hope will be given us.
This work has brought in such fine financial returns that in these times of
depression it would seem the part of wisdom to put as much into it as is pos-sible.
Our people are beginning to see that at all times wholesome food is a
marketable commodity and that the surplus on their farms may be turned
into a substantial income.
Counties.
p
a
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r.
b
o
Two Years' Pkogress 17
equipment and an annual maintenance fund equal to the amount received
from the State to avail itself of the State appropriation not to exceed a maxi-mum
of $2,500.00 for instruction in agriculture, sewing, cooking, household
economics and other farm life subjects in connection with one or more of its
rural high schools, nine new farm life schools have been established this year,
making a total of 15 such schools in 12 counties of the State. No part of the
annual maintenance fund for these schools or of the funds for their necessary
equipment is allowed to be taken out of the regular school funds and to
shorten the regular public school term until those funds are sufficient to pro-vide
a minimum of six months. The significant and hopeful fact about their
establishment through the cooperation and sacrifice of the people of the
communities in which they are located is the evidence that it furnishes
of intense interest in the education of country boys and girls for country life
and of the faith of the country people in a sort of education and school that
can and will provide better preparation for more profitable, more comfortable,
more healthful, more joyous and more contented living in the country.
The farmers, individually and through their various organizations, have
lined up enthusiastically behind this movement. All the rural uplift forces of
the State and county, educational, agricultural, public health, have actively
cooperated in the movement.
Five of these schools have been in successful operation now for two years
or more, and their results more than justify the wisdom and the expense of
their establishment and maintenance. In cooperation with the A. & M. College
arrangements have been completed for supervision and aid in the direction of
the vocational and extension work of these schools by trained specialist in
these subjects who will, after this year, be connected with the State Depart-ment
of Public Instruction also as supervisor of these schools and of this sort
of work in other public schools, devoting such time to that work as may be
necessary.
As will be seen from the reports of Mr. Brogden and Mr. Newbold found
elsewhere in this report, a number of consolidated rural schools with three or
more teachers are also doing some excellent work in instruction and prac-tical
training in farm life subjects without State aid under the direction of
the county superintendents and the rural school supervisors.
I regard the establishment of these schools and the remarkable increase in
the number of them in one year through the efforts and demands of the coun-try
people themselves as perhaps the most significant, practical and
far-reaching single forward step of this biennial period and perhaps of the
decade. In my opinion, it marks the beginning of a new era in rural
education and in the adaptation of the work of the rural schools to the
life and needs of the country people that is destined to result in increased effi-ciency
of the rural population and in a re-direction and a re-organization of
rural life and a revolution of rural conditions within one or two generations.
Community Service Week.—One of the most hopeful, successful and stimu-lating
movements for rtiral uplift was the inauguaration and observance of
Community Service Week in 1914. Three days, December 3rd, 4th and 5th,
were set apart by proclamation of Governor Craig as Community Service
Days. Thursday was designated as "Public Roads, Grounds and Building Day"
for voluntary work by men, women and children of each town, township or
school district for needed improvement in one or all of these. Friday was
Part 1—2
18 Two Years' Pbogkess
designated as "School and Neighborhood Improvement Day" for a gathering of
all the people with the children at every schoolhouse in town or country for
a discussion of the conditions and needs of the community, and for making
plans and appointing committees for the execution of those plans, for
improving the schools, highways, social life, economic, moral and health con-ditions
of the community. Saturday was designated as "County Progress Day"
for a general county gathering at the county seat to discuss the needs and
possibilities of the county and to make plans and inaugurate movements for
its progress and development.
Under the direction of a committee on Community Service Week, consisting
-of the following: Clarence Poe, Chairman; W. C. Crosby, Secretary; J. Y.
Joyner, W. A. Graham, E. K. Graham, J. I. Foust, H. Q. Alexander, D H. Hill,
W. S. Rankin. T. B. Parker, and W. J. Shuford, cooperating with the follow-ing:
The State Department of Education, The State Department of Agri-culture
and Dr. Louis R. Wilson, a carefully prepared bulletin, containing
programs for each day, full, valuable, detailed suggestions for its successful
observance and for plans and committees, county and community, for the
permanent direction of the work, statistical information about each county,
suggested sources of information, stories of successful community and county
service work accomplished in various counties and communities in the State,
^tc, was prepared. Dr. Louis R. Wilson, Librarian of the State University,
Tendered invaluable assistance as editor of the bulletin. This bulletin was
printed and distributed by the State Department of Public Instruction. With
aid of an appropriation of $500 by the State Department of Agriculture sup-plemented
with a smaller appropriation by the State Farmers' Union, Mr. W.
'C. Crosby was engaged as secretary, devoting his entire time for about ninety
'days, in cooperation with the committee through the State Department of
Education and the indispensable assistance of county superintendent and
teachers of each county, to the organization and direction of this work in the
various counties and to the distribution of the literature relating to it. With-out
his able assistance during these three months, it would have been im-possible
for the State Department of Education to have conducted this work
successfully. In addition to the bulletin, blanks for rural surveys, covering
educational, economic, social, moral and sanitary conditions and needs of each
community and county, were distributed. Many of these surveys were made
and formed the basis for discussions and plans for county and community im-provement.
The response to the appeal for the celebration of Community Ser-vice
Week- and for community service by the public press, by the county su-perintendents
and the teachers, by county boards of education and school com-mitteemen,
by farm demonstration agents, by the county and local farmers'
unions, by social service organizations of various sorts and by the people gen-erally,
was hearty, encouraging and, in many instances, enthusiastic. Not-withstanding
the unfortunately inclement weather on each of the three days
the reports received in this office indicate that the days were observed most
successfully and profitably in a large number of counties and communi-ties.
A summary of these reports, giving fuller information about the results
of these community service meetings, will be made and given to the public
later. Even at this writing, however, enough is known from the reports al-ready
received to warrant the prediction that Community Service Week will
be generally observed next year and will become one of the most effective, per-
Two Years' Progress 19
manent agencies for intelligent, cooperative work for rural and urban com-munity
improvement in North Carolina.
Practical histruction in Public Health and Hygiene.—With the valuable
assistance and cooperation of the State Board of Health and its efficient
and energetic secretary and assistant secretaries, much valuable work has
been done in the public schools in increasing interest and giving instruction
in public health and hygiene. Bulletins, dealing in a concise, simple, and
practical way with the simple hygienic laws affecting the everyday life of the
child and the people, have been prepared under the direction of the Secretary
of the State Board of Health, and printed and distributed to teachers of the
State by the State Department of Public Instruction. A list of these bulletins
will be found under Educational Literature.
Directions have been given to the teachers, through the county superin-tendents,
to make use of these bulletins for the systematic instruction of
the children of their schools in public health and hygiene, and to give to
the entire school at least three brief health talks a week, the information
for which, progressively and logically arranged, has been furnished them in
the Health Talks Bulletins. Another one of these bulletins, enlarging some-what
on the first ideas, is now in the course of preparation.
This health and hygiene work is a long step forward toward the improve-ment
of sanitary conditions and public health in the rural districts. County
superintendents and public school teachers have responded intelligently
and enthusiastically to the call for it. Emphasis was laid upon this work
in the county teachers' institutes and special attention is being given to it
in the county teachers' associations.
By addresses and talks to the teachers and to the general public, the secretary
and assistant secretary to the State Board of Health and the physicians of
the State generally are aiding greatly in this campaign for the instruction
of the children and the people of the State in public health and hygiene and
in the cultivation of public sentiment therefor. It is impossible to calculate
how much can be done, through simple instruction, line upon line, precept
upon precept, for the rising generation in the public schools for the preven-tion
and eradication of typhoid fever, tuberculosis, hookworm disease, scarlet
fever, smallpox, diphtheria, and other preventable diseases that constitute
the chief scourges of our population. The sentiment is rapidly growing and
the demand rapidly increasing that such instruction shall be made an
essential and organic part of our educational work.
Campaign for Education.—The campaign for education, by bulletins, through
the press, and by public addresses, has been carried on without cessation.
The State Superintendent has used all the time that he could spare from his
work in the office for field work and educational campaign work. In this
work he has also been assisted by the State Agents for Rural Schools and the
State Inspector of Public High Schools and other members of his educational
staff. Through the continuance of the generous aid of the Southern Education
Board, in providing funds for the payment of their expenses, strong speakers,
who generously contributed their services, have been sent to communities
asking for the agitation of the question of local taxation and the consolida-tion
of schools, and to communities in which elections on the question of
local taxation for public schools were pending. Among these speakers have
been representative teachers, editors, lawyers, preachers, business men, public
officials, and others. It is regretted that this Educational Campaign Fund
20 Two Yeaks' Progress
will not hereafter be available, on account of the dissolution of the Southern
Education Board after the death of Mr. Robert C. Ogden, its chairman and
great benefactor.
In many counties, of course, enthusiastic and consecrated county superin-tendents
have carried on almost continuously effective campaigns for public
education and school improvement, by personal work, public addresses, circu-lar
letters, newspaper articles, etc. In this work many of them have been
assisted by consecrated teachers and public spirited citizens of all classes and
vocations. After all, the most effective part of this campaign is that carried
on from year's end to year's end, without blare of trumpets, in the county,
under the direction of an efficient county superintendent of common sense and
consecration.
Woman's Association for the Betterment of Public Schoolhouses and
Grounds.—Marked progress has been made. Many new county associations
have been organized. Through the unselfish work of the patriotic women of
the State, county and local associations, thousands of dollars have been raised
for the improvement of schoolhouses and grounds, and much valuable volun-tary
service that can not be measured in dollars and cents has been rendered
in making the schoolrooms and school grounds more beautiful and attractive,
and in cultivating public sentiment and public interest for the betterment
of the public schools. Many county superintendents, public school teachers,
county boards of education, and school committeemen have given their
hearty cooperation to the women in this work.
County Commencements.—Another significant and distinctive forward step
in the educational progress of the period has been the increased number of
county commencements held and the increased interest and improvement
in these events. In 1914, successful county commencements were held in
forty-one counties in which about seventy-five thousand school children par-ticipated
in parades, contests, school exhibits, school fairs and other events
and about twenty-five hundred children received certificates after examination
for the completion of the work of the seven elementary grades.
These commencements have come to be, perhaps, the most effective educa-tional
rallies and the most popular public gatherings in the counties in
which they have been held. They have proved one of the most effective
agencies for the stimulation of county pride, school spirit, community emula-tion,
for the cultivation of public sentiment for public education and for
the encouragement of children to remain in the public schools for the com-pletion
of the elementary grades and to enter the rural high schools and the
farm life schools. A bulletin on the county commencements, containing
accounts of some of them, typical programs and valuable suggestions for their
organization and successful conduction, has been issued from the State
Department of Public Instruction, and a copy of the same can be obtained
from any county superintendent.
Important Educational Legislation.—The General Assembly of 1913 passed
much very far reaching and important educational legislation and did much
towards establishing means of increasing the efficiency of the public school
system of the State:
The State Equalizing Fund.—The State equalizing fund was created con-sisting
of the revenue derived by setting aside annually five cents of the
total annual State tax levy on each one hundred dollars valuation of property
for appropriation to the public schools of this State to be used exclusively
Two Years' Progress 21
for the payment of teachers' salaries, for lengthening the school term, and
for bringing the school term in every public school district to an equal
length and to a minimum of six months or as near thereto as the equal-izing
fund will provide. The one hundred and twenty-five thousand dol-lar
appropriation and the one hundred thousand dollar appropriation were
repealed by this act and in lieu thereof two hundred and fifty thousand dol-lars
was appropriated to be distributed to the public schools on a! per
capita basis annually.. In the appropriation of the State equalizing fund
the law specifies that no account shall be taken of local tax funds in the
distribution of the money. In order to participate in this fund a county
must, first, provide with its own funds sufficient money to run its schools
eighty days and is required, if necessary, to levy a special tax not exceeding
fifteen cents on the hundred dollar valuation of property and forty-five
cents on each poll. Counties having complied with this requirement or
having levied the maximum amount, are then apportioned funds to pay the
salaries of their teachers for as long a term as this fund will provide. After
levying the maximum rate of tax to provide a four months' term counties
that still do not have sufficient funds for providing the term required are
entitled by the act to receive aid from this fund on the same" basis as the
counties providing the full four months' term.
Compulsory Attendance.—All children between the ages of eight and tv/elve
years are required to attend school for a term of four continuous months
each year. Provision is made by the act for the exemption of pupils attend-ing
approved private schools and for pupils prevented from attending school
for providential reasons. Parents are required to send their children to
school, and it is made a misdemeanor by the act for any parent or guardian
to withhold a child from school subject to the provisions of the act. Attend-ance
officers whose duties it is to enforce the law are appointed by the county
board of education. Teachers are required to make weekly reports to the
attendance officers of all absences and are required to cooperate in the
enforcement of the law. The county board of education is given power to
make such rules and regulations as they deem best to secure the attendance
of the children to whicli the law applies.
Child Labor Law.—No child under twelve years of age can be employed
to work in any factory or manufacturing establishment in the State except
in an apprenticeship capacity and then only after having attended school
for four months in the preceding twelve. No person under sixteen years of
age can be employed in a mill, factory, or manufacturing establishment be-tween
the hours of 9 p. m. and 6 a. m. Violation of these provisions is made
a misdemeanor, and the county superintendent is required to investigate.
County Farm Life School Law.—The Guilford County Farm Life School
Law was amended so as to apply to any county of the State complying with
the provisions thereof. Under this act any county may receive from the
State an appropriation not to exceed $2,500 for one or more of the rural
high schools in the county when a like amount is provided by county appor-tionment,
local taxation or otherwise, and the school or schools have com-plied
with the other requirements specified, for instruction and extension
work in sewing, cooking, household economics, agriculture and other farm-life
subjects.
22 Two Yeaes' Pkogeess
Women on School Boards.—The act specified tliat positions on rural and
graded school boards, etc., shall not be deemed offices in this State, and
women are therefore made eligible to serve in these places except where the
person holding such position or place is elected by the people.
County Unit of Apportionment.—Section 4116 of the Revisal was so amended
as to make the county, instead of the township, the unit of apportionment
of school funds and also gives the county board of education the authority,
after a six months' school term has been provided, to pay not exceeding one-half
the salary of a whole-time health officer for the county.
Authority to Acquire School Sites. Section 4131 was amended so as to
give the board of trustees and committee of chartered graded schools the
same authority with respect to acquiring school sites under their direction
that is vested in the county board of education.
Counties May Unite in Employing Superintendents.—Section 4135 was
amended so as to allow any county having a school fund not exceeding
$15,000 to unite with an adjoining county in employing a county superin-tendent
jointly for his full time.
Appointm,ent of School Committeemen.—Section 4145 was amended so as
to require the county boards of education to appoint school committeemen
as follows: one for a term of three years; one for a term of two years; and
one for a term of one year, and their successors each for a term of three
years.
Election of Teachers.—Section 4161 was amended so as to require all
applications for positions to teach in a county to be filed with the county
superintendent of public instruction and that the county board of education
shall fix a day in each township for the election of teachers, at which time
the committeemen of the various districts shall meet with the superintendent
and elect teachers for all the schools of the township. It also provides
that no election of any teacher shall be deemed valid until approved by the
county superintendent.
Loans for Dormitories.—Section 4153 was amended so as to allow a part
of the loan fund to be used for the purpose of erecting dormitories for rural
public high schools and farm life schools.
Justices of the Peace Must Report to County Boards.—Section 410S was
amended so as to require justices of the peace to report to the county board
of education fines, forfeitures and penalties imposed in their courts.
City Treasurers Must Report—Section 4158 was so amended as to require
treasurers of city school funds to report to the State Superintendent.
Must Provide for Payment of Teachers' Salaries.—Section 4164 was amended
so as to authorize and require county boards of education to provide for the
payment of teachers' salaries promptly at the end of each month.
Members of County Board.—Section 4119 was amended so as to provide
that members of the county board of education appointed by other members to
fill unexpired terms shall serve only until the Legislature meets and acts.
Assistant Teachers.—Section 4153 was amended so as to provid.e that no
assistant teacher shall be employed in any one-teacher school until the
average daily attendance is forty and that such assistant may be dismissed
if average daily attendance for four consecutive weeks is less than forty.
Public High Schools.—Section 1 of the public high school law was
Two Years' Progress 23
amended so as to require every high school receiving State aid to maintain
a term of at least seven months. Section 2 was amended so as to make the
graded school committee the high school committee where the graded school
received State aid for its high school.
Qualifications of County Superintendent.—Section 4135 of the Revisal
was amended so that the two years' experience required of a county superin-tendent
must come within the five years immediately preceding his election.
Educational Literature.—During the two years the following new educa-tional
literature has been prepared, published and sent out from the Superin-tendent's
office:
Program of North Carolina Day, 1913, 56 pages.
Community Service Week in North Carolina, 86 pages.
Plans for Public Schoolhouses, revised and enlarged, 76 pages.
Hand Book for High School Teachers, 1914, 92 pages.
Public School Law, 1913. 143 pages.
Public School Law, 1914. 83 pages.
Directory of School Officials, 1913. 45 pages.
Directory of School Officials, 1914. 45 pages.
Teachers' Reading Circle, 1913. 12 pages.
Teachers' Reading Circle, 1914. 12 pages.
Fifth Annual Report of Inspector of High Schools, 1912. 60 pages.
Sixth Annual Report of Inspector of High Schools, 1913. 59 pa^es.
Proceedings and Addresses of the North Carolina Teachers' Assembly, 1913.
257 pages.
Proceedings and Addresses of the North Carolina Teachers' Assembly, 1914.
266 pages.
Biennial Report of the Superintendent of Public Instruction, 1910-1912. 469
pages.
Daily Schedule of Work for Teachers' Institutes, 1914. 22 pages.
How to Teach Reading and Civics, 1913. Ill pages.
Song Collection for Teachers' Institute, 1913. 54 pages.
Song Collection for Teachers' Institute, 1914. 57 pages.
School Exhibits, 1913. 4 pages.
Public School Register, 1913 and 1914. 48 pages.
Record Book for Attendance Officer. 24 pages.
Outline Course of Study for Elementary Public Schools, 1914. 154 pages.
The County Commencement, 1914. 74 pages.
Opening Exercises, 1914. 24 pages.
Civic Days, 1913. 46 pages.
In addition to these a supply of the most valuable bulletins heretofore pub-lished
and reported has been kept on hand and will continue to be kept on
hand for distribution. Besides the foregoing, blanks covering every phase of
school organization and work have been sent out. These have aided all school
officials in keeping their records and making accurate reports of the work
done. A new and improved system of accounting has been introduced
throughout the State to aid in keeping record of school funds. A new system
of statistical records of the county superintendents has been provided dur-ing
this biennial period. The efforts along this line have aided greatly in
the gradation of rural schools, which means a great saving of time to the chil-dren
who attend these schools by enabling them to do more consistent and con-secutive
work.
RECOMMENDATIONS.
By the enactment of the law setting aside annually five cents of the State
levy on every one hundred dollars of property as a "State Equalizing Fund"
to lengthen the public school term, resulting the first year in an addition of
23.3 days, and by the passage of the compulsory attendance law, resulting the
first year in an increase of about 12 per cent in pubic school attendance,
the General Asembly of 1913 took a long and most commendable step in the
direction of supplying two of the most pressing fundamental needs of the pub-lic
schools, longer terms and better attendance. This progressive legisation in
these directions, however, but emphasized the necessity of legislation by the
General Assembly of 1915 for increased efficiency in teaching and supervision
to guarantee better returns for increased expenditures and justify compulsory
attendance.
Profoundly convinced that efficient teaching and efficient supervision are the
most pressing needs of our public schools at this time, are strategic points in
the success and future progress of the public school system, and are, therefore,
the most important subjects for conservatively progressive legislation by this
General Assembly, I have confined my recommendations mainly to these two
subjects. What we need most to do now is to enforce, strengthen and develop
what we have. This we can best do by strengthening and protecting the
teachers and superintendents, the directors and the executives of this great
business of education.
In the interest of increased efficiency in teaching and supervision, I beg,
therefore, to make the following recommendations:
I. Uniform Examination, Gradation, and Certification of Teacliers.
Increased expenditures for schools and longer school terms ought to mean
increased salaries for teachers, increased efficiency of teachers, and a higher
standard of qualifications for the profession of teaching. People have a right
to expect and to demand better teachers and better teaching when they pay
more money. The work of the teacher must be elevated to the plane of a
profession and must be given the protection guaranteed to other professions
and even to callings that are not professions before there can be much
inducement to men and women of character and ability to adopt it as a life
work and equip themselves professionally for it. The raising therefore of the
standard of qualifications for a license to teach, and the establishment of a
uniform and impartial standard is absolutely necessary for the protection of
teachers, the protection of the public, and the estabishment of any real profes-sion
of teaching.
Under the present method of examination, gradation and certification of
teachers, no certificate, except a High School certificate and a five-year first
grade State certificate issued by the State Board of Examiners under the High
School Law, is valid in any county except the county in which it is issued, un-less
the county superintendent of any other county sees fit to approve and en-dorse
it. No first grade certificate is valid for more than two years, and no
second grade certificate for more than one. Each of the one hundred county
26 Kecommendations
superintendents, can, if he cliooses to exercise his autliority, establish practi-cally
his own standard of examination, gradation and certification of teachers,
and each succeeding county superintendent in each of the one hundred
counties, can, at his discretion, change the standard. In justice to the teach-ers
and for their encouragement and stimulation to better preparation, schol-astic
and professional, and to the permanent pursuit of the profession of
teaching, some, uniform and equitable plan should be devised as recommended
herein for giving proper credits for academic and professional work done, and
for successful experience and length of service, for relief from repeated exami-nations,
and for life license.
I urgently recommend, therefore, the enactment of a law providing for uni-form
examination, gradation and certification of teachers, urban and rural, by
a State board of examiners, composed of representative superintendents of
schools, urban and rural, and of representative teachers of primary schools,
grammar schools, high schools and colleges. After investigation of the meth-ods
of examining and certificating teachers in many other States, I beg to
suggest the following outline of this plan
(a) That examination and gradation of all applicants shall be made by
the State Board of Examiners to establish a uniform standard of academic
qualifications, and that said board shall certify to the applicant and to the
superintendent of schools the grade and class of certificate to which said ap-plicant
is entitled.
(6) That the County Superintendent shall issue a certificate of the kind
designated to each successful applicant of his county, if, in his judgment, the
personality of such applicant and his general qualifications other than schol-arship
fit him for the work of teaching. That in case of refusal of the County
Superintendent to issue such certificate the applicant shall have the right to
appeal from his action to the County Board of Education of said county
for review and investigation of the causes of such refusal, and for the final
determination of the matter.
(c) Certificates so issued shall be valid without further examination in
any county of the State when approved by the Superintendent of Public In-struction
of said county, but shall not be valid to teach in town or city schools
until approved also by the superintendent of said schools, and upon the refusal
of the city or town superintendent to approve said certificate the holder there-of
shall have the right to appeal to the Board of School Trustees of said town
or city for review, investigation and final determination of the matter.
(fZ) That superintendents in cities and towns of 5,000 or more inhabitants
may conduct the examination of applicants for schools under their super-vision,
subject to such rules and regulations as the State Board of Examiners
may prescribe, and may issue to successful applicants the required certificates
under the provisions of this Act.
(e) 'J hat said Board of Examiners shall arrange and adopt a plan for the
classification of certificates and for the promotion of teachers from one class
to another, and for life license, that shall encourage and reward by a reason-able
increase in salary, successful experience, professional training and ad-vanced
scholastic attainment, and that shall provide for proper credits for
academic work in certain subjects in standard high schools,, normal schools
and colleges.
(/) That a graded system of fees by applicants for examination be ar-
Kecommendations 27
ranged to meet the expenses of the State Board of Examiners, said fees to
be paid into the State Treasury.
(f;) The refusal of one county or city superintendent or county or city
Board of Education to issue a certificate to any applicant certified by the
State Board of Examiners shall not operate to prevent said applicant from ap-plying
for a certificate to any other county or city superintendent.
(h) That there shall be a fixed minimum professional and scholarship re-quirement
in advance of present requirements for teachers of each class or
grade after a fixed future date.
(i) That there shall be required the same minimum qualification in schol-arship
and experience for county and city superintendents after a fixed future
date as may be required for a first grade elementary teacher's certificate.
II. Coiiuty Superiision.
In every county the county superintendent is necessarily the business and
professional head and director of the county school system. No big business
can be permanently successful without a competent head devoting his entire
time and ability to the organization and direction of the business in all of its
departments. 'J'he education of thousands of children through scores of
schools and teachers in each county is the biggest and most important busi-ness
in that county. The business has been growing bigger and more impor-tant
in every county every year. The expenditures for it by State, county, and
district taxation have been rapidly increasing every year until in 1914 they
were in the State five times what they were in 1902. The business has grown
most rapidly and its success along all lines has been greatest in those counties
that have employed competent whole-time superintendents at a living salary
and have given these superintendents adequate assistance where needed.
Increased expenditures, increased attendance, increased teaching force,
lengthened school terms, demonstrated successful results in counties that have
tried it as set forth elsewhere in my biennial report, seem to me to make the
conclusion irresistible that the time has come for the employment of a com-petent
whole-time county superintendent at a living salary in every county,
and, in the larger counties for the employment of such additional assistance,
clerical and professional, at the expense of the county as eflacient administra-tion
and supervision of the work may demand.
I, therefore, recommend for more efficient supervision:
(a) That the law be so amended as to require the county Board of Educa-tion
of each county to employ for his entire time a competent superintendent,
who shall be required to give his entire time to the direction of the educational
work of the county and the visitation and supervision of the schools while in
session and who shall be forbidden to engage in any other profession or
regular business while superintendent.
(b) That county boards of education in the larger and wealthier counties
be specifically authorized to employ such additional clerical and profes-sional
assistance for the county superintendent as may be deemed nec-essary
for the greater efficiency of the work; provided, however, that each
county shall provide the additional expense necessary for such assistance out
of its special levy, or its regular county school funds, and that no part of the
same shall come directly or indirectly from the State Equalizing Fund.
It is, of course, apparent that the additional expense necessary for the em-ployment
of a whole-time superintendent in counties employing only part-time
28 Recommendations
superintendents now, will be provided by the special levy for necessary
expenses for a four-months term, or out of the "State Equalizing Fund" in
counties in which such a levy is unnecessary. As the State, therefore, bears
directly or indirectly this additional expense for whole-time county superin-dents,
as the school term in the county will not be shortened thereby, as the
smaller and weaker counties, because of their lack of them heretofore, need
them worse now, I can conceive of no valid objection to providing whole-time
county superintendents for these counties as well as for larger and stronger
counties, practically all of which now have them at State expense. Nor can
1 see any reasonable objection to authorizing specifically any county to provide
at its own expense additional assistance for its superintendent, if it is able to
do so and needs it.
III. IVon-itartisan County Boards of Ediieation.
.As stated in my recommendations two years ago, it is, in my opinion, wise
and just that wherever well qualified men can be found in the minority party,
representation should be given to both of the leading political parties upon
County Boards of Education. Since the schools are maintained by the taxes
of all the people, patronized by the children of all the people, irrespective of
their political views, and need for their success the hearty support and inter-est
of all the people, they should therefore be removed as far as possible from
partisan politics, and directed by a board as non-partisan as is consistent with
the constitutional requirement for a uniform system of education and with the
responsibility of the majority political party of the State for the successful
administration of that system in every county of the State. The method of
selecting County Boards of Education should be made uniform. By special
legislation six counties now elect their County Boards of Education. Section
2 of Article IX of the Constitution of North Carolina requires a uniform sys-ter
of public schools."
IV. ImproTeiiieut and Enlargement of Laws for the Protection of Childliood
and Womanhood.
For the protection of childhood and womanhood, the foundation upon which
our whole civilization rests, I urgently recommended improving and enlarging
the present laws regulating the labor of children and women in the factories
and the extension, and the extension of these laws to include all companies,
corporations and individuals employing children and women. I recommend
also the establishment of an efficient system of State inspection for the en-forcement
of such laws. I refrain from specific recommendations at this
time awaiting the recommendations of the North Carolina Child Labor Com-mittee,
the Conference for Social Service, and other organizations that are
making a special study of this subject, and I shall heartily cooperate
with such organizations in recommending and securing the enactment and en-forcement
of any reasonable laws for the better protection of childhood and
womanhood.
V. Endorsement of Other Reeonuitendations.
I concur in the recommendations of Superintendent of the Colored Normal
Schools for the small sorely needed increase in the annual appropriation for
the maintenance and equipment of these schools; in the recommendations of
Recommendations 21)
the State High School Inspector for the small increase in the annual appro-priation
absolutely necessary for their development and the increasing need--
incident to the their rapid growth and in the recommendations of the StatP
Agent and Supervisor of Negro Rural Schools for the establishment of train-ing
schools and the encouragement of industrial training in the negro schools.
I beg to call your careful attention to these recommendations in their reports
printed elsewhere in this report.
VI. Jforiiial Training' Courses in the Piil)lic Hisrh Schools.
I concur heartily in the recommendation of the North Carolina Teachers'
Assembly for the addition of Normal Training Courses of study in the first
class public high schools as an effective means of placing within reach of the
rank and file of the rural school teachers at small expense, some professional
preparation for more efficient teaching. I hope that the General Assembly
may be able to make a special appropriation for this work.
VII. Minor Amendments to the Public School Law.
I deem it unnecessary to recommend specifically here some minor amend-ments
to the public school law which will be submitted to the General Assem-bly
in an omnibus bill through the committees on education.
Resolutions of the North Carolina Teachers' Assembly and the State Farm-ers'
Union.
I beg to submit below the recommendations and resolutions of the North
Carolina Teachers' Assembly and the State Farmers' Union relating to educa-tion
adopted unanimously at their annual meetings in 1914:
Resolutions of the Xortli Carolina Teachers' Asseniblj'.
The Committee on Resolutions beg to make the following report and offer
the following resolutions for adoption by the North Carolina Teachers'
Assembly
:
First. That we heartily recommend the addition of normal training to the
course of study offered in our public high schools, and request the Legisla-tive
Committee to urge the next Legislature to provide by law for this addi-tion
to the course of study in these high schools, as the most effective means
for securing an adequate number of trained teachers for our elementary
schools.
Second. That we very earnestly and heartilj^ endorse the recommendation
of the State Department of Education with reference to a system of uniform
examination and certification of teachers of the public schools of the State
and request the Legislative Committee of the North Carolina Teachers' As-sembly
to present this matter with our endorsement to the next General
Assembly of North Carolina.
J. I. FOUST.
I. C. GRIFFIN.
J. H. HIGHSMITH.
MISS FRANCES WOMBLE.
MISS DAPHNE CARRAWAY.
30 Recommendations
Recommendations and Resolutions of tiie North Carolina Farmers Educa-tional
and Co-opeiatiie Union, Greenville, 1914.
The Committee on Education desires to offer the following report:
1. We congratulate the State Union and its faithful and powerful allies
(the State Department of Education a,nd our State institutions of learning)
on the success achieved in changing the trend of sentiment in our system of
public educa,tion from the purely academic to the practical.
2. In our opinion, the time has come in North Carolina when the people
have a right to expect and to demand better teachers and better teaching as
they annually put more and more money into the work, and since it is prac-tically
impossible to secure this without raising the standard of the profes-sion,
we recommend that the General Assembly of the State be asked to
enact a law providing for the uniform examination, gradation, and certifica-tion
of teachers.
3. We favor the amendment of our compulsory school attendance law so as
to apply to the children from the ages of eight to fourteen years, inclusive.
4. In order to stimulate reading—and the right kind of reading—among the
members of our local Unions, we recommend that our State Union give five
hundred dollars annually for the purpose of helping local Unions throughout
the State to establish and supplement libraries, confined largely to books on
country-life problems; that from this fund five dollars be given to each local
in the State which furnishes ten dollars for this purpose; that this sum be
given each year to the first one hundred locals making application, and that
our State President appoint a Library Comrriittee of three members to select
books and prescribe necessary regulations governing the same.
5. We deplore the fact that in a great many communities in the State the
less intelligent farmers object to the teaching of agriculture and domestic
science in the nublic schools, often criticising teachers of these subjects in
the presence of their children, thus lessening the influence of the teacher, not
only in the work of teaching these subjects, but also in the whole work of the
school. We would urge, therefore, that the locals in such communities use
their influence to have these fundamental subjects taught as required by the
law which was enacted at the request of the farmers of the State.
6. We wish most heartily to commend the State Department of Education
and also the State University, the A. & M. College, the Normal and Industrial
College, the Cullowhee Normal and Industrial School, the East Carolina
Teachers Training School, and the Appalachian Training School, for the
splendid work they have done and are doing in the practical forms of educa-tion
which are prime factors in community building.
Fraternally submitted,
W. C. CROSBY, Chairman.
T. C. HENDERSON, Sec'y.
J. E. TURLINGTON.
C. C. WRIGHT.
T. S. COBLE.
W. R. JULIAN.
E. L. FRANK.
WORK TO BE DOME AND HOW TO DO IT.
Notwithstanding the encouraging progress along all former lines and the
encouraging beginning along new lines of educational work during the past
two years, as revealed by the official reports, the work to be done and the ways
and means of doing it have not been materially changed since my preceding
report. As I discussed most of these subjects somewhat fully and to the best
of my ability in that report, basing my discussion and suggestions on the
most careful study of our educational conditions that I have been able to
make, I have deemed it wise to bring forward, with some changes and addi-tions,
parts of my previous biennial report. This is the work to be done,
as I see it; these are the ways and means of doing it, as I see them. I can
do no better than to cry aloud and spare not until the General Assembly and
the people hear and heed the suggestions or in their wisdom find and adopt
some better ways of doing this needed work.
TJioroughness in Essentials.—The foundation of all education is, of course,
a mastery of the rudiments of knowledge—the elementary branches of read-ing,
writing, arithmetic, and spelling. A knowledge of these and the training
and development which comes from the effort necessary for the acquisition of
such knowledge are absolutely essential for every human being. It is folly
to talk about higher education or special training along any line for any
useful sphere of life or work until the children have secured at least this
much instruction. According to the United States Census of 1910 12.3 per cent
of the white population and 31 per cent of the colored population over ten
years of age in North Carolina could not read and write. While I have no
doubt that we have reduced this per cent of illiteracy during the past four
years, it is still painfully true that there is yet a large number of illiterates
among us and a larger number of children on the straight road to illiteracy.
A large majority of our country schools are still one-teacher schools. The
average length of our white rural school term is still only 116 days. Our
chief attention should, therefore, be given to doing thoroughly this founda-tion
work and making adequate provision for it. If the foundation be not
well laid first, the entire educational structure must fall to pieces.
The law now wisely forbids the teaching of any high school subjects in any
school having only one teacher. It requires, however, the teachiiTg of thirteen
subjects in these one-teacher schools. It is absolutely impossible for one
teacher, with as many children as are to be found in the average rural school
in seven grades, to do thorough work in so many subjects. It seems to me that
the number of required subjects should be reduced, that the teacher in every
one-teacher school should be required to devote more time—in fact, most of
the time—to teaching thoroughly these fundamental essentials in reading,
writing, arithmetic and spelling. It is folly to attempt the impossible. In my
opinion, at least the first four years of the elementary school with only one
teacher should be devoted almost exclusively to these four subjects, sand-wiching
in just enough of geography, mainly in the form of nature study,
talks on everyday hygiene, etc., to give a little variety to the course and to
furnish some foundation for a little more extensive work in these and kindred
subjects later.
32 Work to be Done and How to Do It
There is more educational value, more acquisition of power and of correct
intellectual habits in a thorough mastery of a few subjects than in a super-ficial
knowledge, a mere smattering, of many. The one lays the foundation
for real culture; the other lays the foundation for nothing better than veneer-ing.
I am satisfied that there is great need for a substantial reform along
this line in the required course of study in our elementary schools. The
sensible teachers in the one-teacher schools are not attempting to teach this
multiplicity of required subjects, and those who are attempting to teach all
of these are failing to teach any as they should be taught. The law ought not
to require a vain and foolish thing.
Public High Schools.—Every child has the right to have the chance to de-velop
to the fullest every faculty that God has endowed him with. It is to the
highest interest of the State to place within the reach of every child this
chance. By the evidence of the experience of all civilized lands of the past
and the present, the study of the higher branches is necessary for the fullest
development of these faculties. Unless provided in the public schools, in-struction
in these can not be placed within reach of nine-tenths of the chil-dren
of North Carolina. If the great masses of our people are to be limited
in their education to the elementary branches only, we can not hope for any
material improvement in their intelligence and power and any material in-crease
in their earning capacity. This State cannot expect to compete suc-cessfully
with those States that have provided such instruction in their public
schools for the highest and fullest development of all the powers of all their
people.
"The old idea that instruction in the public schools must be confined to the
rudimentary branches only, or the three R's, as they were called, was born
of the old false notion that the public schools were a public charity. This
notion put a badge of poverty upon the public school system that was for
many years the chief obstacle to the progress and development of public edu-cation
in North Carolina. The notion still lingers in the minds of the few that
at heart do not believe in the power and rights of the many. It has no place
in a real democracy. It must give place to that truer idea, accepted now in all
progressive States and lands, that public education is the highest govern-mental
function—in fact the chief concern of a good government. This was the
conception of our wise old forefathers when they declared in their Constitu-tion
that 'Religion, morality, and knowledge being necessary to good govern-ment
and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall
forever be encouraged,' and when they wrote into their Bill of Rights, 'The
people have a right to the privilege of education, and it is the duty of the
State to guard and maintain that right.'
"No man in this age will dare maintain that instruction in the mere rudi-ments
of learning can be called an education or that the people have been
given the right to an education when instruction in these branches only has
been placed within their reach. Under this broader democratic conception of
public education and its function the obligation of the Government to the
poorest is as binding as its obligation to the richest. The right of the poorest
to the opportunity of the fullest development is as inalienable as the right of
the richest. Good government and the happiness of mankind are as depend-ent
upon the development of the fullest powers of the poorest as upon the
development of the fullest powers of the richest. Where the Creator has hid-den
the greatest powers no man can know till all have been given the fullest
Work to be Done and How to Do It 33
opportunity to develop all that is in them. Every taxpayer, rich or poor, has
an equal right to have an equal chance for the fullest development of his
children in a pubic school with the fullest course of instruction that the State
in the discharge of its governmental function is able to provide.
"Public high schools constitute a part of every modern, progressive system
of public education. If our system of public schools is to take rank with the
modern, progressive systems of other States and other lands, to meet the
modern demands for education and supply to rich and poor alike equal edu-cational
opportunity, instruction in these higher branches, whereby prepa-ration
for college or for life may be placed within the easy reach of all, must
find a fixed and definite plan in the system."
Under the act of the General Assembly appropriating $75,000 from the
State Treasury to aid in the establishment of public high schools, 212 public
high schools in 96 counties of the State have been established, and applica-tions
for the establishment of many others have had to be refused each year
on account of the insufficiency of the appropriation. A report of these schools
by Prof. N. W. Walker, State Inspector of Public High Schools, is published
elsewhere in this report. I commend it to your careful attention.
Under the law and the rules adopted by the State Board of Education, not
more than four of these schools can be established in any one county. No
public high school can be established except in connection with a public school
having at least two other teachers in the elementary and intermediate grades,
and the entire time of at least one teacher must be devoted to the high school
grades. No public high school can be established in a town of more than
twelve hundred inhabitants.
Each district in which a public high school is established is required to
duplicate by special taxation or subscription the amount apportioned to the
school from the State appropriation; each county is required to apportion to
each public high school out of the county fund an amount equal to that appor-tioned
to it out of the State appropriation. The minimum sum that can be ap-portioned
annually from the State appropriation for the establishment and
maintenance of any public high school is $250 and the maximum sum $500. The
total sum annually available for any public high school established under this
act ranges, therefore, from $750 to $1,500. The high school funds can be used
only for the payment of salaries of the high school teachers and the necessary
incidental expenses of the high school grades.
No teacher can be employed to teach or can draw salary for teaching any
subjects in any public high school who does not hold a high school teacher's
certificate covering at least all subjects taught by said teacher in said public
high school, issued by the State Board of Examiners, of which the State
Superintendent is ex officio chairman. The course of study is prescribed by
the State Superintendent of Public Instruction.
As indicative of the need and demand for these schools, I beg to call your
attention to the fact that there have been applications for many more such
schools than could be established with the appropriation, and that the number
of such applications would have been greatly increased had it not been under-stood
that the appropriation was already exhausted. As a further striking
indication of the need for them, of the desire among the masses of the country
people for higher instruction, and of their willingness and determination to
avail themselves of the opportunities placed within their reach for such in-struction,
I beg to call your attention to these significant facts, taken from
Part 1—3
B4 WoKK TO BE Done and How to Do It
the official reports of these schools, all of which are in country districts or
small towns of less than twelve hundred people: 8,316 country boys and girls
were enrolled in the high school grades of these schools during the seventh
year, and of these 6,307 were in average daily attndance.
Do not the large enrollment and the remarkable average daily attendance
of more than 73 per cent of the enrollment in these high schools indicate
almost a pathetic eagerness of the country boys and girls for high school in-struction,
and a commendable willingness on the part of their parents to
make the sacrifices necessary to give their children a chance to avail them-selves
of the opportunities to get it? Is it not more than probable that per-haps
nine-tenths of all these boys and girls enrolled in all the grades of these
high schools would never have had an opportunity for any higher instruction
or better preparation through higher instruction for service and citizenship
had not these public high schools been established within their reach and
means?
The State and county can not afford to ignore this demand and need. An
adequate system of public high schools will be found to be a part of every
modern system of public education in all progressive cities and States in the
country and in the most progressive and prosperous countries of the world.
It is a need and demand of the age. By no other means than by the
public high school can high school instruction be placed within the reach of
the children of the many. By no other means than by the rural public high
school can it be placed within the reach of the great majority of the country
boys and girls.
The private high school cannot meet this demand, because the tuition and
other necessary charges for its maintenance place it beyond the means of the
majority of the country boys and girls, and because the number of country
parents who are able to bear these necessary expenses of instruction in
private high schools for their children is far too small to maintain enough
of these private high schools to be within reasonable reach of more than a
very small minority of the country boys and girls. No one church is able to
support enough of these high schools to place high school instruction within
reasonable reach or within the financial ability of more than a mere handful
of boys and girls in the rural districts.
The church high school could hardly hope for the patronage of more than
the children of the families accepting its tenets or inclined to its doctrines.
For a complete system of high schools, therefore, that would reach all the
children, it would seem to be necessary for each denomination to maintain a
system of high schools in every county and to have as many systems of high
schools in each county as there are denominations in that county. The im-practicability
and expensiveness of meeting adequately the demand for high
school instruction among the masses of the people, especially in the rural
districts, by private high schools or by church high schools must be apparent,
therefore, to any thoughtful student of rural conditions.
The task of placing high school instruction within reasonable reach of all
the children of all the people, irrespective of creed or condition, is too great
and too complicated, it seems to me, ever to be successfully performed by
church, private enterprise or philanthropy. If performed at all, it seems to
me, it must be by all the people supporting by uniform taxation a system
of public high schools of sufficient number to be within the reasonable reach
of all the children of every county and community, with doors wide open
Work to be Done and How to Do It 35
to the children of the poor and the children of the rich, irrespective of creed
or condition, affording equality of educational opportunity to all the children
of a republic, of which equality of opportunity is a basic principle.
The church high school and the private high school will still find a place and
an important work in our educational system, but they can never take the
place or do the work of the public high school for the masses of the people.
There will always be those among us who will prefer the church or private
high school, and who will be able to indulge this preference, but the main
dependence of the many for higher education must still be the public high
school, suported by the taxes of all the people, belonging to all the people,
within reach of all the people. God speed the work of the church and the
private high school in this common battle against ignorance and illiteracy.
There is work enough for all to do; but surely in a republic like ours, one of
the cardinal principles of which is and must ever be the greatest good to the
greatest number, friends of the church high school and of the private high
school will never undertake to say that all the people must get out of the
way of a few of the people, and that the many public high schools, supported by
all the people for the benefit of all the children, must get out of the way
for a few private and church high schools that can at best hope to reach
but a few of the children of tlie people.
Future Development of Public High Schools.—There are now from one to
four public high schools in each of the 96 counties of the State. There are,
therefore, four counties in which no public high schools have yet been estab-lished.
For the proper maintenance and development of these high schools
more money will, of course, be required.
It is our hope to be able to select the best high school in each county, taking
into consideration the location, the accessibility, the environment, etc., and
develop this into a real first-class county high school, doing thorough high
school work for four full years and some vocational work in agriculture, sew-ing
and cooking and other rural life subjects. Around this school should be
built a dormitory and a teachers' home. The dormitory, properly conducted,
would afford and opportunity for the boys and girls from all parts of the
county to board at actual cost. Many of these could return to their homes
Friday evening, coming back Mcnoay morning. Many of them who do not
have the money to spare to pay their board would probably be able to bring
such provisions as are raised on the farm and have them credited on their
board at the market price. A small room rent could be charged each student.
The principal's home would make it possible to secure a better principal and
keep him probably for years, thereby giving more permanency to the school
and more continuity to the work, making a citizen of the teacher and enabling
him and his family to become potent factors in the permanent life of the com-munity,
contributing no small part to uplifting it, morally and intellectually,
by their influence.
It is my hope to be able to secure the development of a number of these
central county high schools in the most favorable counties, equipped with dor-mitories
and teachers' homes, and demonstrate the practibility, success and
the value of them. Having done this, it will be easy to secure their establish-ment
and development in other counties. We should gradually develop in
every county of the State at least one first-class county high school with
dormitory and teacher's home. Then the other high schools in different sec-tions
of the county should be correlated with this central school, and the
36 WoKK TO BE Done and How to Do It
course of study in these should be limited probably to not more than two
years of high school work, requiring all students desiring to pursue the last
two years of the four-years course to attend the central county high school,
which will be fully equipped in all respects for thorough high school work.
The central county high schools, as they grow and develop, should become
also the nuclei for successful industrial and agricultural training. Parallel
courses of study for the last two years might be arranged, one course offering
thorough preparation for college of the small number of students desiring
such preparation and the other offering practical industrial and agri-cultural
training for the large number whose education will end with the high
school. The dormitory would afford a splendid equipment for practice work
for the girls in cooking, domestic science, household economics, etc.; while
the boys, during the last two years, could have training in agricultural sub-jects
that will fit them for more intelligent and profitable farming. The prac-tical
side of this work could be supplied by acquiring by purchase or lease a
small farm in connection with the high school.
All this development must, of course, be a gradual and and perhaps a some-what
slow growth. It is best that it should be. We must be content with the
day of small things. We can not far outrun the desire, demand, and ability
of the people. Our schools must have their roots in the life and needs of the
people and grow out of these. They must not be lifted at once so high above
these that their roots can not not touch them and that the people will be un-able
to reach up to them. They must connect with the life and conditions as
they now are, and grow upward slowly, changing these gradually and lifting
them upward with them as they grow
The best colleges of the State are raising their entrance requirements with
a gradual elevation of their courses of study to standard colleges, thereby em-phasizing
the necessity for the development of more high schools prepared to
give a full four years course of high school instruction, in order to prepare
students at home for entering these higher institutions.
The demand for vocational work in agriculture, sewing, cooking, household
economics and other rural life subjects for preparation of country boys and
girls at home for country life is increasing, and becoming more insistent
every year, thereby also emphasizing the necessity for the establishment and
maintenance of more rural high schools with a full four years course of study
including instruction in these rural life subjects. If these demands are to be
met, there must be an increase in the State, county, and district appropria-tions
for the establishment and maintenance of more of these central rural
high schools, prepared in faculty and material equipment, to give a full four
years course of study for preparation for college and for vocational prepara-tion
for country life.
Industrial and Agricultural Education.—"Every complete educational sys-tem
must make provision also for that training in the school which will give
fitness for the more skillful performance of the multitudinous tasks of the
practical work of the world, the pursuit of which is the inevitable lot of the
many, for that training which will connect the life and instruction of the
school more closely with the life that they must lead, which will better pre-pare
them for usefulness and happiness in the varied spheres in which they
must move. All these spheres are necessary to the well being of a complex life
Work to be Done and How to Do It 37
like ours. The Creator, who has ordained all spheres of useful action, has not
endowed all with the same faculties or fitted all for the same sphere of action.
" 'We are all but parts of one stupendous whole,
Whose body Na,ture is, and God the soul!"
"Every wise system of education, therefore, must, beyond a certain point of
educational development, recognize natural differences of endowment and fol-low
to some extent the lines of natural adaption and tastes, thus cooperating
with Nature and God. The education that turns a life into unnatural chan-nels
and into the pursuit of the unattainable fills that life with discontent and
dooms it to inevitable failure and tragedy. In recognition of these established
laws of Nature and life, manual training and industrial education are begin-ning
to find a fixed and permanent place in systems of modern education.
They have already been given a place in some of the higher institutions of
our public school system—in the A. and M. College for the white race at Ra-leigh,
in the State Normal and Industrial College for women at Greensboro, in
the A. and M. College for the colored race at Greensboro, and in our county
farm life schools. Under the new supervision industrial training is empha-sized
in the State Colored Normal Schools at Winston, Fayetteville, and Eliza-beth
City. Some of the city graded schools, notably those of Durham, Ashe-ville,
Wilmington, Winston, Greensboro, Charlotte, and Raleigh, have intro
duced manual training and industrial education.
"This sort of education, however, must come as a growth, a development of
a general school system that provides first for the intellectual mastery of
those branches that are recognized as essential for intelligent citizenship and
workmanship everywhere. It must be remembered that the first essential
difference between skilled labor and unskilled labor is a difference of intelli-gence
as well as of special training; that a skilled farmer must be first of all
a thinking man on the farm; a skilled mechanic, a thinking man in the shop;
that a skilled hand is but a hand with brains put into it and finding ex-pression
through it; that without brains put into it a man's hand is no more
than a monkey's paw ; that without brains applied to it a man's labor is on the
same dead level with the labor of the dull horse and the plodding ox; that a
man with a trained hand and nothing more is a mere machine, a mere hand.
The end of education is first to make a man, not a machine.
"It will be well to remember, also, that industrial education is the most ex-pensive
sort of education, on account of the equipment necessary for it and
the character of the teachers required for it. Teachers prepared for success-ful
instruction in this sort of education must, of course, be in some sense
specialists in their line, and always command good salaries. For the majority
of the public schools of the State, therefore, with one-room schoolhouses with-out
special equipment and with one teacher without special training, with
the present meager salary, and barely money enough for a five
months term and for instruction in the common school branches, with more
daily recitations already than can be successfully conducted, industrial educa-tion
and technical training are at present impracticable.
"A study of the history of this sort of education will show that it has come
as a later development, after ample provision had been made for thorough in-struction
in the lower and in the higher branches of study, in those schools
that were provided with school funds sufficient for instruction in the ordi-nary
school studies, for the expensive equipment and for the teachers trained
38 Work to be Done and How to Do It
especially for industrial and technical education. In fact, I think it will be
found that such education has been provided first in towns and cities and great
centers of wealth and population or in institutions generously supported by
large State appropriations or by large endowments. To undertake such edu-cation
in the ordinary rural schools of the State in their present condition,
with their present equipment and with the meagre funds available for them,
would result in burlesque and failure, and would, in my opinion, set back for
a generation or two this important work."
We can and should, however, continue to give in all our public schools,
elementary instruction in agriculture, and to encourage nature study in these
schools. An admirable little text-book on agriculture has been adopted for
use in the public schools, and in the course of study sent out nature study
has been provided for every grade.
In a number of counties, with the aid of the county superintendents and
their assistants in rural school supervision, many public schools with three or
more teachers have been organized by consolidation and enlargement of small
districts. In these schools without interference with thorough instruction in
the required elementary school subjects, some efficient instruction is being
successfully undertaken in sevving, cooking, gardening, agriculture, and other
subjects adapted to country life. We must reduce to a necessary minimum,
as rapidly as possible, the one-teacher schools, and multiply as rapidly as
possible the number of schools with three or more teachers. If we expect
to place more thorough instruction in the prescribed elementary branches and
any sort of efficient industrial and agricultural education within close reach
of the majority of the country children. I beg to call special attention to the
fuller reports of the work of the elementary rural schools of this type and to
the encouraging results thereof, contained in the reports of the State Agents
in Rural Supervision published elsewhere in this report.
I beg to call attention, also, to the discussion of these subjects contained in
the address of the State Superintendent to the State Association of County
Superintendents published elsewhere in this report.
The longest and most successful step in the direction of efficient industrial
and agricultural education for preparation of country boys and girls for
country life yet taken, is the establishment of the county farm-life schools, a
fuller discussion of which will be found in the first part of this report.
Illiteracy and Nonattendance and How to Overcome The^n—Compulsory
Attendance.—With 131,992 native white illiterates over ten years of age, or
12.3 per cent, according to the United States Census of 1910; with only 79
per cent of the white children between the ages of six and twenty-one enrolled
in the public schools and only 55 per cent of them in reguar daily attendance;
with about 115,000 white children between these ages unenrolled in the public
schools; with North Carolina still standing in the United States Census of
1910 near the last in the column of white illiteracy, the urgent need of finding
and enforcing some means of changing as rapidly as possible these appalling
conditions must be apparent to every thoughtful, patriotic son of the State.
Two means suggest themselves: (1) Attraction and persuasion. (2) Com-pulsory
attendance.
Attraction and Persuasion.—"Much has been done, much more can be done,
to increase attendance through the attractive power of better houses and
grounds, better teachers, and longer terms. An attractive schoolhouse and a
good teacher in every district, making a school commanding by its work
Work to be Done and How to Do It 39
public confidence, respect and pride, would do much to overcome nonattend-ance.
The attractive power of improved schools and equipment to increase
attendance is clearly demonstrated by the statistics of this Report, which
show with few exceptions, the largest per cent of attendance in consolidated
districts, rural special tax districts and entire counties that have the largest
school fund, the longest school terms, and the best schools.
"The general rule seems to be, then, that attendance is in direct proportion
to the efficiency of the schools and the school system. I have already called
your attention to the fact that with the improvement in the public school-house
and schools, and the increased educational interest during the past
few years, has come also an increase in the per cent of enrollment and at-tendance
in the public schools.
"Much can also be done to increase the attendance upon the public schools
by earnest teachers, who will go into the homes of indifferent or selfish
parents whose children are not in school, and by persuasive argument and
tact and appeals to parental pride induce many of these parents to send their
children; who will seek out children in homes of poverty, and remove, through
quiet, blessed charity, the causes of their detention from school. From the
census and from the report of the preceding teacher recorded in the school
register each teacher can ascertain at the beginning of the session the names
of all illiterates and non-attendants of school age in the district and report-ed
cause of non-attendance. Under the rules recommended by the State
Superintendent and adopted by many county boards of education the teacher
is required to spend two days immediately preceding the opening of the school
in visiting the parents and making special efforts to get these children to at-tend
school. I have no doubt that many of these can be and will be reached
by these efforts. Much can be done, also, by active, efficient school committee-men
and other school officers who will take an interest in the school and aid
the teachers in finding and bringing in the children.
"The compelling power of public opinion will do much to bring children into
the school. Logically, as public sentiment for education increases, public
sentiment against nonattendance will increase. Public opinion might, in
many communities, be brought to the point of rendering it almost disgrace-ful
for parents to keep children at home without excellent excuse during the
session of the schools. Self-respecting parents would be loath to defy such
a public opinion and run the risk of forfeiting the esteem of the best people of
the community.
"It is the tragic truth, however, that there are some parents so blinded by
ignorance to the value and importance of education, and others so lazy, thrift-less
or selfish that they can not be reached by the power of attraction and
persuasion, or the mild compulsion of public opinion." It is the sad truth that
those, whose children most need the benefits offered by the public schools are
hardly to be reached by any other means but compulsion.
Compulsory Attendance.—The tendency of illiteracy is to perpetuate itself.
The majority of illiterate children are the children of illiterates and perhaps
the descendants of illiterates. It is natural that ignorance and illiteracy, being
incapable of understanding or appreciating the value and the necessity of
education, should' be indifferent and apathetic toward it—just as natural as it
is for the children of darkness to love darkness rather than light. The inter-vention
of the strong arm of the law is the only effective means of saving
the children of illiterates from the curse of illiteracy. The intervention of
40 Work to be Done and How to Do It
the strong arm of the law is, in my opinion, the only hope of saving, also,
the children of literate, and sometimes intelligent, parents from the careless-ness,
indifference, incompetency, laziness, thriftlessness or selfishness of such
parents.
No child is responsible for coming into the world, nor for his environment
when he comes. Every child has a right to have a chance to develop the
power to make the most possible of himself in spite of his environment during
the helpless and irresponsible period of childhood. No man, not even a par-ent,
has any right to deprive any child of this inalienable right. This right
is vouchsafed as a constitutional right to every child in North Carolina by
the following clauses of our State Constitution:
"The people have the right to the privilege of education, and it is the duty
of the State to guard and maintain that right." Article I, section 27.
"Religion, morality, and knowledge being necessary to good government and
the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall for-ever
be encouraged." Article IX, section 1.
"Every person presenting himself for registration (to vote) shall be able to
read and write any section of the Constitution in English langauge" (which
went into effect December 1, 1908). Article VI, section 4.
The right of the State to intervene and protect the child is his right
and to protect itself, society, and humanity against the ignorance of the child
is recognized and clearly set forth in the following clause in the State Consti-tution
"The General Assembly is hereby empowered to enact that every child
of sufficient mental and physical ability shall attend the public schools during
the period between the ages of six and eighteen years for a term of not less
than sixteen months, unless educated by other means." Article IX, section 15.
Not only has the child a natural and constitutional right to have the chance
to develop through education the powers that God has given him, and thereby
make the most of himself, and, therefore, to have the law intervene, if neces-sary,
to secure this right to him, but the taxpayer, also, has a right to de-mand
the intervention of the Government that compels him to pay his taxes
for the support of the schools, to secure to him the protection that he pays
for against the ignorance of the child. The Government has the right to
intervene, if necessary, to protect itself, society, liberty, and property against
the dangers to all to be found in ignorance, according to the experience of
mankind and the evidence of all human history. If it has the right to tax
its citizens for protection, it has the right to adopt the necessary means to
insure, as far as possible, that protection. If the State or the community
has the right to correct and punish crime and vice, so often resulting from
ignorance and illiteracy, it ought to have the right to take the necessary steps
to remove the cause. Prevention is cheaper and better always than correction
and punishment.
Compulsory attendance laws are the only means found effective by other
States and other countries of the world for overcoming illiteracy or largely
reducing it. Practically all important foreign countries, except the ignorant
countries of Russia, Spain, and Turkey, have found it necessary to adopt com-pulsory
attendance laws in order to overcome illiteracy, and have found them
effective in overcoming it. Forty-three of the forty-eight States of the Ameri-can
Union have been compelled to resort to the same means of overcoming it,
and are finding the means effective. Illiteracy is least in the States and coun-tries
that have compulsory attendance laws, and greatest in those that have
^t*>^--
Kexly High School, Johnston County.
Erected in 1914 at a cost of S17,000.
Cauy High School, Wake County.
In connection with this school is a Farm-Life Department. Erected in 191 1 at a cost of $32,500.
The total school plant, including dormitories, farm, and apparatus is worth S4I),1)00.
WoKK TO BE Done and How to Do It 41
not. No State or country in modern times, so far as I have been able to
ascertain, has ever repealed a compulsory attendance law after it was once
enacted. If such laws have been found beneficial and effective in all these
great States and countries, will they prove otherwise for North Carolina?
One of the most striking illustrations of the effectiveness of compulsory at-tendance
laws in reducing illiteracy is that of France. In 1882 a compulsory
education act went into effect. At that time 31 per cent of the French people
were illiterate; in 1900, the illiteracy had been reduced to 6 per cent, only one-fifth
of what it was eighteen years before.
As bearing upon the question of effectiveness of compulsory attendance laws
in reducing or overcoming illiteracy, the following tables of comparative
illiteracy in typical Southern States that have no compulsory attendance laws
and typical New England and Western States that have such laws will be
interesting and suggestive
:
Table A.. Native White Illiterates Over Ten Years of Age.
Per Gent.
Virginia 81,105 8.2
North Carolina 131,992 12.3
South Carolina 50,112 10.5
Georgia 79,875 8.0
Mississippi 28,344 5.3
Rhode Island 944 0.7
Connecticut 1,707 0.5
Michigan 9,561 1.0
Table B. Native White Illiterates of Voting Age.
Per Cent.
Virginia 33,488 9.9
North Carolina 49,619 14.1
South Carolina 17,535 11.0
Georgia 29,936 8.9
Mississippi 11,129 6.1
Rhode Island 466 1.0
Connecticut 893 0.7
Michigan 5,254 1.6
The tide of emigration has evidently flowed from illiterate to literate;
from ignorance to intelligence; from darkness to light.
To sum up, in view of the fact that only 77 per cent of the total school
population of the State, 79 per cent of the white and 67.8 per cent of the
colored, is ever enrolled in the public schools, and only about 55 per cent of
the white school population and about 47 per cent of the colored is in daily
attendance; in view of the large number of illiterates, white and colored, and
of the large number of children of school age on the straight road to illiteracy
in North Carolina, can any honest citizen doubt the need of the intervention
of the strong arm of the law through compulsory attendance to overcome such
conditions? In view of the constitutional provisions guaranteeing to every
child the privilege of education and imposing upon the State the duty to pro-vide
it and encourage the means for it, and of the constitutional amendment
recently adopted prescribing an educational qualification for suffrage and citi-
42 "VYoKK TO BE Done and How to Do It
zenship;in view of the divine right of every child to make the most possible
of himself in spite of any sort of environment in childliood, for which he can
in no sense be held responsible, can any citizen fail to recognize the consti-tutional
and the natural right of every child to have guaranteed to him the
opportunity to get an education and the duty of the law to intervene to pre-vent
any man from depriving any child of his natural and constitutional
right? In view of the fundamental fact established by the experience of
mankind that in universal education is to be found the best protection to
life, liberty, and property, and that, therefore, it is right and wise for the
Government to tax every citizen to provide the means of universal education,
and thereby secure protection to himself and to every other citizen; in view
of the further fact that every citizen taxed for this purpose has the right to
demand from the Government compelling him to pay the tax the protection
that he has paid for against the ignorance of every child, can any reasonable
man doubt the right and the duty of the State and the community to compel
the child to use the means of protection provided, and to intervene to prevent
the parent from preventing the child from using them? In view of the further
fact that compulsory attendance laws are the only means found effective in
all other States and in all foreign countries for reducing and overcoming
illiteracy, is not any reasonable man forced to the conclusion that North
Carolina will be compelled to resort to the same means in order to bring all
of her children into the schools provided for them and thus reduce illiteracy
and secure to every child his right, to the Government its safety, and to the
taxpayer the protection that he pays for?
I have brought forward from my previous biennial reports, this argument
for compulsory attendance in North Carolina, for the information, conven-ience,
and assistance of those who believe in it, and are seeking to enforce
it and to convert otirers to it, and for the enlightenment and possible con-version
of honest opponents and skeptics on the subject. The General As-sembly
of 1913 wisely enacted a State-wide compulsory attendance law for
North Carolina, an explanation and discussion of which will be found in the
first part of this report.
During the first year of the operation of this compulsory attendance law,
the attendance upon the public schools of the State was increased 11.6 per cent.
This increase in attendance was, of course, mainly attributable to the compul-sory
attendance law. The reports show that in a number of counties where
the law was properly enforced, from 90 to 98 per cent of all the children be-tween
the ages of eight and twelve—the compulsory period prescribed by the
law—were enrolled in the public schools. When it is remembered that the pub-lic
school age in this State is from six to twenty-one years, that the compulsory
attendance period is from eight to twelve, and that the increase in attendance
was necessarily mainly from the children of the compulsory attendance age,
and that this increase was sufficient to increase the attendance of children
of all ages upon the public schools of the State 11.6 per cent, it will be
apparent that a very large per cent of the children between the ages of
eight and twelve must have attended the public schools.
The results of the operation of the compulsory attendance law for the
first year have been very encouraging. The task before us, now, however,
for the elimination of non-adult illiteracy in the present and the prevention
of illiteracy in the future, is to raise gradually the age limits of the com-pulsory
period, to increa.se the annual length of the period until it shall at
WoKK TO bp: Done and How to Do It 43
least cover the entire school term of the public school district, and to
strengthen the machinery for its enforcement. All of these things we hope
to accomplish as rapidly as public sentiment and available funds will justify.
In the meantime, we must continue persistently to work for their accomplish-ment
and for providing the means through which they shall be accomplished.
Adu'it IllUeiacy and lis Elimination.—The census of 1910 shows that,
with the exception of Louisiana and New Mexico, North Carolina has the
largest percentage of native born white illiterates in the United States,
ranking forty-sixth in this particular. By reaching this generation of
children as they pass through the public schools, our compulsory attend-ance
laws, properly amended from time to time and properly enforced,
ought to eliminate illiteracy in the next generation of adults. In the
meantime, this vast army of adult illiterates already beyond the reach
of the schools and all compulsory attendance laws, must be reached, if
reached at all, during this generation, by means outside of the public schools.
The honor of the State and our manifest duty to these adult illiterates
—
our fellow-citizens—demand that we shall find and put into successful execu-tion
at once, some effective means for reaching them immediately, for reduc-ing
rapidly, and finally eliminating adult illiteracy in North Carolina.
By strong resolutions, the State Association of County Superintendents,
the North Carolina Teachers' Assembly, the Junior Order of United American
Mechanics, and the North Carolina Educational and Cooperative Union
have pledged themselves to cooperate actively in the movement for the elimi-nation
of adult illiteracy. I have no doubt of the hearty cooperation
of the churches, the women's clubs, and all social service organizations
of all sorts, in this movement. It is my purpose to call, also, upon
the college students of North Carolina to volunteer their services dur-ing
the vacation in cooperation with the teachers, under the direction of
the county superintendent and educational forces of the respective counties
of the State, to teach these adult illiterates in moonlight schools to read
and write. By a properly organized and wisely directed movement for this
purpose in every community in North Carolina having any considerable
number of adult illiterates, we ought to be able to eliminate adult Illiteracy
within the next few years.
I give below an address